Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Unbelievable! A news presenter just admitted on air ‘I donâ€™t understand a thing about politics!’

I was just listening to the radio. A news presenter had just had a point about economics explained (rather well) by the in-house correspondent. Yet he replied, with an almost audible shrug of his shoulders and a laughing lilt in his voice, by saying: "I don’t understand a thing about finance."

Now, apologies for deliberately mistitling this blog. But had I headlined it with "finance" instead of "politics", would it still have piqued your interest? That’s the problem! No presenter would ever say that about a politics or crime story, so why is it acceptable even for the supposed bastions of incisive journalism to joke about their own financial illiteracy?

This has happened to me a good number of times in my career. I’ve had interviewers look down the camera, in a way seemingly complicit with the viewer, and say: "I hope you understood that, as I never really got ISAs." Now apart from the professional discourtesy of this – saying that in effect my explanation didn’t make sense – it plays into the hands of the idea that the world of money is some type of ghetto that "normal people" donâ€™t get. What rubbish.

If you don’t get ISAs, then learn! As a news presenter it’s your job to at least understand the basics of consumer finance, business and economics. If you’re not capable of it, perhaps look for a different profession.

In fact, invariably the reason the presenter doesn’t understand is because they haven’t listened – they’ve zoned out, or someone has spoken to them in their ear piece and they cover it with a gag about their lack of money interest. Yet again I ask – would they make the same gag about politics?

It’s time this changed. Perhaps the last great taboo in the UK is to talk about money – let alone show any interest in it. Those of us who do are mocked as "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing" as if being educated and interested in money matters means you can’t have an emotional IQ as well.

Pah!

PS: I’ve changed a few of the words and facts here to keep it anonymised as my aim in writing this blog isn’t to shame an individual, but rather to expose a common attitude.

This week the energy select committee took evidence from five comparison sites about energy switching, and in plain parlance, they gave them a kicking.

While it made interesting watching on the BBC Parliament channel, I’m slightly concerned that it may unwittingly end up doing more harm than good – as you’ll see explained in my letter below.

Go to an energy provider, and if you’re lucky and you ask about the price, it may switch you to its best tariff. Go to a comparison site and it should tell you about the whole of the market tariffs – yet even those who gemmy at the edges are still better than energy providers. And the best ones are actually a very strong service. I know how many of you have saved via our Cheap Energy Club.

So here’s the letter I’m sending to the chair of the committee.

Tim Yeo MP
Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee
House of Commons
14 Tothill Street
London
SW1H 9NB

6 February 2015

Dear Mr Yeo,

After watching the evidence session on energy price comparison websites earlier this week, I am writing to express my concern. I am the Editor-in-Chief of the UK’s biggest consumer help site, MoneySavingExpert.com, which has 14 million users a month and 1.4 million members of its Cheap Energy Club, which incorporates a price comparison service.

I fully support the work of the committee to look at the role of energy price comparison websites and how they operate. The points made by the committee about practices which are against consumers’ interests are valid and valuable. Yet many of the statements by members made blanket remarks about ‘comparison services’ – it is crucial to remember the comparison sites interviewed were specifically selected because they were those whose default setting is not to show all tariffs.

To tar all with the same brush is unfair and risks creating a misleading impression. Our service is transparent…

We have always defaulted to a whole of market comparison.

We openly and prominently explain when we are paid and when not.

We give users links to providers who donâ€™t pay us.

We explain the amount we are paid and give Â£30 of it (dual fuel) to consumers as cashback, meaning they get a better deal than going direct to the energy firms.

The understandably robust adversarial nature of the questioning meant many key points about the sector were missed and I am concerned members may infer the wrong conclusions about what changes are needed, and the potential value of these services as a result.

We would ask that evidence is taken on the positive aspects of comparison services in order to encourage switching â€“ which is much needed â€“ and that it be given equal prominence to the session earlier this week via an oral evidence session. My concern is that by not doing so, we risk disincentivising people from switching and playing into the energy firms’ hands.

Rushing between filming and meetings last week, I got into a cab to be greeted by a driver who’d got both PPI and bank charges back after reading guides on this site. He told me he had a very simple question to ask: "Can you believe what the bank tells you?"

In light of the number of scandals, including the PPI scandal – where more than Â£20 billion was mis-sold, sometimes by deliberately lying and misleading customers, encouraged from the very top – it’s easy to say no.

However, I think the answer these days is a little bit less straightforward.

In a nutshell I would suggest you can trust a bank on a matter of fact, but should be more wary on matters of opinion.

So ask a bank "what is my balance?", "how much does a CHAPS payment cost?", "do the records show I ever had a credit card with you?" – in general you’ll get an answer you should believe.

Of course as with every profession, people make mistakes, so I’m not suggesting it’s infallible. Yet for these type of questions I don’t think that in the current regulatory regime (and even to give some credit to the fact the sector itself has changed) there will be an aim to give you an incorrect answer.

Yet if you ask something subjective, be careful. Bank scripts and structures are still set up to give opinions that benefit them.

Ask "was I mis-sold?" – and while some will play fair, others will still sometimes answer "no", even in lucid knowledge that if you took your case to the Financial Ombudsman, you’d get a "yes".

Equally, when discussing whether a product its flogging is worth it for you, necessary or cheap – like all sales institutions, don’t expect to always get a reply which is solely in your interest.

Am I being too cynical, or not cynical enough? Iâ€™d love your views and experiences below.

These brands were rated using the YouGov Brand Index ‘Buzz score’, which asks respondents: "If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?"

The Buzz Rankings chart shows the brands with the highest average Buzz scores between January and December 2014 and these scores are representative of the general population.

And our entry

(10) MoneySavingExpert.com (new entry)
As Britain continues to emerge from economic difficulty, the rate at which this reaches the pockets of ordinary people is less clear. The desire to acquire the best deal still remains and the website is a great outlet for consumers to identify one. Martin Lewis, the face of the company, is very visible on television, helping to boost the website’s profile.

The results from the 2014 Buzz Index are as follows:

UK Top Buzz Rankings

Rank

Brand

2014 Score

1

Aldi

26.3

2

Lidl

20.3

3

John Lewis

18.3

4

BBC iPlayer

18.0

5

Dyson

14.0

6

Waitrose

13.1

7

BBC.co.uk

11.6

8

Netflix

11.3

9

Marks and Spencer

11.3

10

MoneySavingExpert.com

11

What is really interesting to see is that MSE is considerably smaller in terms of workforce compared to the other entities mentioned, with just under 90 employees rather than the 1,000s or 10,000s which I suspect the others employ. We donâ€™t have a ‘brand manager’ – actually we don’t really think about ourselves as a ‘brand’ at all – we just focus all of our efforts on our main goal of saving people money.

I’m delighted that we hit this having just hit more than 10 million people on our weekly email list – rock on Tommy!

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